Geographic information systems provide for the archiving, retrieving, and manipulating of data that has been stored and indexed according to geographic coordinates of its elements. Interactive geographic information systems allow for the navigating and displaying of geographic imagery. Some interactive geographic information systems provide a user interface with navigation controls for navigating cities, neighborhoods, geographic areas and other terrain in two or three dimensions. Geographic information systems can display many different layers of information on top of a two or three dimensional representation of the world. These geographic data layers can include, for instance, terrain data layers, street information data layers, building data layers, border data layers, and other geographic data layers that provide information associated with discrete geographic coordinates.
A user of a geographic information system often needs to compare two or more geographic data layers to find differences, such as changes in vegetation, construction, river path, etc. While geographic information systems currently include control capability for managing geographic data layers, the control capability can be cumbersome and can make it difficult for the user to focus on the information presented in the geographic data layers. For instance, a user may have to execute several actions and even navigate away from the screen displaying the geographic imagery to manage the presentation of geographic data layers. This is particularly true in mobile device applications where display space may be limited.